


The Pride of Kings

by manic_intent



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: M/M, Missing Scene, That story taking place between Smaug leaving Erebor and the Final Battle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:28:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26987491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manic_intent/pseuds/manic_intent
Summary: As Smaug winged away toward Laketown, Bilbo turned to Thorin, horrified. “We have to help them somehow. Warn them. All those people—”“There is no helping them now, laddie,” Balin said before Thorin could speak. The dwarves looked exhausted, huddled in a dispirited group beside the lake of molten gold. The heat was immense even from where Bilbo stood, and as the gold began to cool, it made strange hissing, snarling noises, as though furious at the new form that it had been forced to take.
Relationships: Bilbo Baggins/Thorin Oakenshield
Comments: 18
Kudos: 129





	The Pride of Kings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [reclamation](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reclamation/gifts).



> Donation prompt by @reclamation, who asked for The Hobbit, Thorin/Bilbo, Canon!verse or slightly canon divergent: Thorin’s psychological decline/fraught relationships after arriving at Erebor but before the final battle. Anything that delves into this or ‘what ifs’ around this general period.
> 
> Whew, it’s been… 5+ years since my last Bagginshield story? I’m happy to write it (following my prompt policy), but I had to look up some clips and read the wiki to remember what film canon even was, haha. Time has mashed my memory back to the book, which was a big part of my childhood.

As Smaug winged away toward Laketown, Bilbo turned to Thorin, horrified. “We have to help them somehow. Warn them. All those people—”

“There is no helping them now, laddie,” Balin said before Thorin could speak. The dwarves looked exhausted, huddled in a dispirited group beside the lake of molten gold. The heat was immense even from where Bilbo stood, and as the gold began to cool, it made strange hissing, snarling noises, as though furious at the new form that it had been forced to take. 

“What about Kíli and the others? Aren’t they still in Laketown?” Bilbo demanded. 

Thorin didn’t even look at him. “They should be on their way here,” he said in a brusque tone. “It won’t take long for the dragon to raze that town. It will return to its lair once its lust for violence is sated.”

“So, what now?” Bilbo asked, looking helplessly over at where the giant statue had been. “Our last attempt at a dragon trap didn’t work all that well. Do we block up the entrance? Repair the gate?” 

“The gates didn’t keep Smaug out the first time.” Thorin stared at the pool of gold. Light reflected off its molten surface, gleaming against Thorin’s skin. “We came here for a reason. To find the Arkenstone. Back to the hoard—we should locate it before the dragon returns.” 

Turning, Thorin forged back into the gloom, his handsome face drawn into a tight, hungry grimace. Dwalin looked wordlessly between Balin and Thorin before running a hand over his shaven head and following his king. 

“We should probably hide. Or. Find something that could help,” Ori said, looking uneasily after the dragon. “Balin, you grew up here, didn’t you? Surely there are parts of this city where the dragon can’t fit.”

“Plenty,” Balin said tiredly, “but there’s a reason why we chose to leave than stay. You’ll find out soon enough exploring the tiers.” 

“So what do we do now?” Ori asked. He looked anxiously at Bilbo as he spoke.

“What are you looking at me for?” Bilbo asked, partly amused, partly cross. “I’m not the leader of this sorry little band.” 

“We-ell,” Dori said, pulling at his moustache, “feels like we’ve come all this way in part because of your efforts, and the King doesn’t look like he’s in much of a mood for further plans.” 

Bilbo started to speak and hesitated, his eyes still drawn toward Laketown. Shivering, he said, “Honestly, I’d say we pray toward whoever might care to listen that the dragon doesn’t come back. Yet if it does, I don’t know what else we could do.” 

“There may be weapons in Engineering that might be of further use,” Balin said, though he didn’t sound hopeful at the prospect. 

“I suppose that’s all we can do. Explore what’s left of the city, and maybe try and think of something that can stop the dragon while we’re at it.” Maybe there’d be a good place to hide. 

As Balin nodded and ambled off, Bilbo’s hand stole to the pouch at his hip where the Arkenstone sat. Guilt pulled at the edges of his soul to feel its weight against his fingertips, and yet—Bilbo couldn’t bring himself to take it to Thorin. It wasn’t greed that kept the stone with him. Beautiful as it was, the Arkenstone was just a huge shiny bauble to Bilbo. He didn’t understand why Thorin needed it so, or why it meant so much to the dwarves that even Gandalf thought that it would reunite the clans if Thorin had it. 

Besides, Bilbo rather doubted that Thorin would truly be willing to leave even if he were handed the Arkenstone. Bilbo exhaled. The Arkenstone wasn’t meant to be his. Not when it meant so much to Thorin and his people. Yet he held it close anyway, watching the night sky. Waiting for the dragon to return with a bellyful of fire. 

“Master Baggins,” Ori said, walking up beside him, now fiddling with his sleeve.

Bilbo flinched—he’d thought himself alone. “Oh, er. Yes?” 

“You think it’d be back for sure?” Ori asked, watching the night through the stone. 

“Barring a miracle in Laketown, yes.” 

“If there were more of us, we could collapse that archway,” Ori said, gesturing at the great door. “Block it with quarried stone, or with parts of these here statues. I’d like to see that big flying lizard get past all that. It can huff and burn the flank of the mountain all it likes, and it won’t get through.” 

“Entomb ourselves in here? Interesting response.”

“There’s that one way out in the back.” 

“Won’t be much of a life,” Bilbo said. Smaug would be smart enough to wait for them outside. Their supplies would run out. Anyone attempting to go for help would be found—even Bilbo, with his ring. 

“Could hold out in here until Gandalf gets back with a better idea,” Ori said. 

“You trust the wizard all that much?” 

“Not particularly, seeing as he’s left us here. Still, it’s something. Doesn’t matter. We don’t have enough hands to bring that all down and shore it up before the dragon returns.” 

“We’ll have to hide in Erebor. I’m sure it’d be possible,” Bilbo said, though his experience with dwarven cities wasn’t much to speak of. 

“Possible. But not much of a solution, neither.” Ori blew out a sigh. “That hoard, that’s the problem. That much gold—it takes people in funny ways. It’s in the stories. I know them well, as a scribe.”

“Why are you immune?” Bilbo asked, though he smiled. 

“It just doesn’t look real to me, to tell you the truth. All that money. Part of my brain’s thinking, maybe it’s all a mountain of pebbles with gallons of gold paint sloshed over the top.” Ori grinned shyly as Bilbo laughed, mirth startled out of him despite himself. 

“Hah! Well, now I can't unsee that.” 

“The other part of my brain’s a-thinking… that much gold like that, it’s for kings, it is. Not for the likes of the rest of us.”

“Yet you signed up for this madcap journey.” 

“My brothers and I are distant kinsmen of the king,” Ori said, glancing over his shoulder. “Dori felt obliged. Once he said he was coming, Nori and I had to come along too. As to Bifur, he drew the short straw in the Mining Guild, which wanted to send a representative to please the King. Once he did, Bofur and Bombur signed up to go with him. Oin, Balin, and Dwalin are also kin. The princes, you know. That’s all of us accounted for.” 

“If you’re kinsmen of Thorin’s, doesn’t that make you nobility?” Bilbo asked, though he still wasn’t entirely sure how the system worked out where dwarves were concerned. Or Men. 

“Not at all.”

“Yet your brother still felt obliged to come.” 

“He remembers the early days when we were still settling in the Blue Mountains. Before I was born. He likes to say that our mum wouldn’t have made it that far if not for Thorin and his sister, Lady Dís. It was a hard journey, and our mum caught an infection along the way. The Lady Dís is a skilled healer—she kept all the sick and injured alive. We lost no one during the trek. And t’was Thorin who instructed supplies and medicines to be shared equally among all the survivors.” 

Bilbo nodded. He’d seen glimpses of that sort of leader in Thorin on the way here. Less and less of late, the closer they grew to Erebor and its hoard. “Best help Balin find a place where we can all hide if we have to,” Bilbo told Ori, watching the sky. “I’ll stay here and keep an eye out.”

#

The dragon did not return. In the morning, Thorin ordered the entrance fortified with blocks of stone that had to be hauled over on pulleys from around the Great Hall. Thankfully, the dwarves didn’t expect Bilbo to contribute, so he made himself scarce. Erebor stank powerfully of Smaug, for all that the dragon had supposedly just been sleeping all this while. It smelled of sulphur and scales, an acrid stench that lingered in the back of the nose and soured the taste of food.

Bombur looked glum when Bilbo mentioned this to him. The usually good-natured dwarf had hidden in the cavernous kitchens that had once fed the Erebor Royal Guard. Close enough to the Gate to deliver food to people working at the door, and still mostly intact. Dwarves made even their kitchenware to last, with great vats of hammered steel and great hearths where grilles and spits had somehow escaped rusting over the years. Not that there was much to roast. Bombur had somehow cobbled up a stew out of their remaining rations, but it smelled of sulphur. 

“We could eat outside,” Bombur said.

“Doubt Thorin will allow that,” Bilbo said, though he fully intended to. If he had to spend the whole day in the dank mountain-city… 

“He’d have to allow something,” Bombur said, frowning at the pot as he had a taste. “We’ll have to hunt soon. Or fish.” 

“I could do that,” Bilbo said, though he wasn’t much for doing either. 

Standing in a kitchen far larger than Bag End, Bilbo felt powerfully homesick in a way that he hadn’t for some time. He’d never had to hunt or fish back in the Shire. Food had always just appeared in a conveniently dressed form, bought at markets or delivered to his door. He missed his mother’s furniture, his books, his beautifully stocked pantry. He missed sitting down to grilled fish with lemon and herbs, with fennel butter and a pint of decent ale, with buttery apple pies and cream for supper. It would be blackberry season soon, which Bilbo usually looked forward to. Instead of preparing to stock up with jam and tarts and cakes, he was here—far away and nowhere at all, deep in a dragon’s lair. 

“Master Baggins?” Bombur asked. 

“Oh! Yes. I’m sorry. I was far away.” 

“I know how that feels,” Bombur said, stirring the pot, his whiskery face creased into a wistful smile. “It’s almost blackberry season. Or would’ve been, in the Blue Mountains.” 

“You have that too?” Bilbo asked, then blushed. Of course. The Blue Mountains weren’t _that_ far from the Shire. 

“We don’t live underground over there. It’s cold much of the year, but it’d be summer now. The soil’s rich where Ered Luin is, thanks to the mountain. During summer, the whole mountain range looks like it’s trying to make up for the rest of the year. You can get any kind of fruit. Lots of game, lots of vegetables.” 

“Sounds like my kind of place,” Bilbo said, trying to imagine it. A city hidden within the range, or a string of settlements. “I never asked, and I hope this isn’t disrespectful, but why flee that far? All the way from here?”

“I don’t rightly remember,” Bombur admitted. “Bofur, Bifur, and I, we were born in Ered Luin. Seems there used to be dwarves there for a long time. Don’t much know about that. Weren’t any left by the time we got there.”

“Sounds like a nicer place than here,” Bilbo said, keeping his tone as light as possible in case he gave offence. 

“Suppose so, Still. Bofur and I, we don’t have ties to this place. Not like Balin and Thorin. Most of the others too—they didn’t think it was worth waking the dragon for. Whether it was to take back our home, or revenge, or a dragon’s ransom.” 

“Yet you’re here.” Bilbo offered a quick smile. “Owed part of the hoard, richer than you could’ve ever dreamed.” 

“The dragon could be back at any moment,” Bombur said, going back to stirring the stew. “Can’t eat gold.”

#

The Great Library smelled less dank than every other chamber Bilbo had poked through so far. Either that or Bilbo was starting to lose his sense of smell. Horrifying thought. He hid in its dusty recesses with a crust of bread and his portion of stew, looking through manuscripts that had stayed beautifully intact over time. Dusting off a reading lectern, Bilbo finished his food, wiped off his hands, then carefully unrolled a great scroll over its surface. Some scribe had gone to great lengths to pick out letters in gold and blue ink before creating a lush border of intricate knots. Pity the script itself was in the dwarven language.

As Bilbo squinted at the script, Thorin said, “Can you even read that?” 

“Obviously not,” Bilbo said, then regretted his sharp comment near-instantly. Thorin’s mood had only grown uglier as the dragon failed to return. He spent almost all of his time in the dragon’s hoard, sifting through the gold. On occasion, he would venture up to the gate to see how the fortifications were progressing—the only point at which he could be persuaded to eat. His eyes had hollowed out in his face, which was fast growing gaunt under his unkempt beard. 

Thorin smiled, amused. The gesture was so unexpected that Bilbo blinked, and didn’t move as Thorin leant over him to study the scroll. “An account of Ered Luin before the First Age. Of the two great cities, Gabilgathol and Tumunzahar, and of the master craftsman, Telchar, who made Narsil.” 

“Narsil?” 

“A famous sword of the First Age, wielded by King Elendil the Fair, the first High King of Gondor and Arnor, the first King of all the Dúnedain. Slain by Sauron. It broke into two pieces, and his son, Isildur, used the handle-shard to defeat Sauron. He took the shards with him. They’re an heirloom now among his descendants, I presume.” 

“Did your people resettle in either of those cities?” Bilbo asked. 

Thorin sobered, shaking his head. “They were lost to the sea after the First Age. We rebuilt settlements on its shores. Sometimes, while mining, we found old tunnels that must have been dug during the First Age, but they were always unfinished things.” 

“It must have been hard at the beginning. To rebuild from scratch.”

“It was.”

“Why didn’t you come to us for help in the Shire? We aren’t that far from Ered Luin.” Bilbo hadn’t even been aware of the great migration of the Ereborean refugees until this quest. It’d been something that had happened long before he was born, certainly, but the Shire had always sat on fertile, prosperous land.

“Your Shire couldn’t have fed even half our number,” Thorin said, with a wry smile. “It was a hard trek west, following ancient maps that were centuries out of date. The old paths bypassed your Shire. I presume it didn’t yet exist during those days. We barely had the energy to keep moving, let alone explore.”

“Makes sense.” 

“I suppose as well that we… I… assumed we would only be rejected again,” Thorin said, rerolling the scroll. “As the Elves did. As the cities of Men that we passed on our way. They were our allies when we were wealthy and powerful. You Hobbits—we had no links to the Shire, no trading ties. If it was so easy for our allies to reject us when we were in need, what more strangers?” 

“You don’t know us very well,” Bilbo said, though he wasn’t sure how the Shire would’ve handled having scores of exhausted, traumatised dwarves descend on their threshold. 

“Clearly I didn’t,” Thorin said, regarding Bilbo with a gaze of such strange intensity that Bilbo flushed and made a show of opening the next scroll in the stack that he’d found. The new scroll had a sketch of a longsword. “Narsil,” Thorin said. 

“Nice,” Bilbo said doubtfully, studying the detail.

Thorin huffed. “’ Nice’? This is a sword of legend. The blade that defeated Sauron, a masterwork of dwarven craftsmanship. Nice. Tch.” 

“I’m sure it was very pleasing to the eye and all that—oh, you laugh,” Bilbo said, incredulous, as Thorin chuckled. “That’s it. I’m never going to give a thought for your feelings ever again.” 

“When have you ever?” Thorin asked, even as he read the scroll. 

About to make a quip in response, Bilbo belatedly recalled the Arkenstone in his pockets. So close to the one who desired it most. He looked away uncomfortably, only for Thorin to gently touch his elbow. “That was said in jest,” Thorin said. 

“I can’t always tell with you dwarves,” Bilbo said, a little weakly. “You’re not exactly known to love jests.” 

“Not with people we don’t know. Or don’t treasure,” Thorin said, his gaze lingering meaningfully over Bilbo. Tracing the fine mithril shirt he wore, over Sting at his hip, then tracking back to his eyes until Bilbo reddened again and coughed. 

“Do you even have the time for something like that?” 

“Time is a strange thing. I’ve lived nearly two centuries, and—”

“What?” Bilbo gawked. 

Thorin started to laugh. “Is that so strange? You’ve met Thranduil. He’s rumoured to be around seven thousand years old.” 

“Yes, well, but he’s an Elf,” Bilbo said, still staring at Thorin. “You look, well. Is Balin that much older than you?” 

“Not at all. I’m older than he is. By about seventeen years.” 

Bilbo rubbed at his temple. “Right. If this is another dwarven joke, I’m not sure how it’s meant to be funny. Or is it a ‘ha ha, let’s see what the hobbit will believe’ sort of thing?” 

“I wouldn’t lie about something as a joke,” Thorin said, looking away. “As I was saying. All these years I’ve lived in Ered Luin away from Erebor… they’ve felt so fleeting. Like sand passing through my fingers. It’s only here—now—that I feel alive again. As though I can taste every breath on my tongue.” 

“Nothing quite like having to fight a dragon to feel alive?” Bilbo asked, with a quick curl to his mouth. 

“Something like that,” Thorin said. He ran his fingertips over the gold ink on the scroll. The gleam from the lanterns crystallised something in Thorin’s eyes, resetting his face out of its good humour to something angular and hard. “Once I have the Arkenstone, life will be even sweeter. All these years scraping through the dirt in Ered Luin, begging the other dwarven lords for succour that never came. All the cities of Men and Elves who turned us away in our time of need. It’d be Erebor returning to a position of power.” 

“Thorin,” Bilbo said softly, unsettled by Thorin’s mood. 

Thorin looked up, cold and furious, his lip curling. “Don’t pity me,” he snapped, and stormed out of the chamber. 

“I wasn’t going to,” Bilbo whispered once alone. The darkness loomed closer, stifling him.

#

The strained tension in Erebor thickened with each day that the dragon didn’t return. Balin and Dwalin constantly debated whether it was dead or razing its way elsewhere. The intelligent ravens who lived close to Erebor weren’t much help. Bilbo volunteered to head out to Laketown to take a look—anything but remain in the oppressive atmosphere in the dead city—but Thorin vetoed it. He spent his days cloistered in the treasury now, not even venturing up to check the fortifications, eating little, sleeping little.

When Bofur and the princes returned, Bilbo had been relieved—only to be disappointed all over again when not even Thorin’s ebullient nephews could change his ugly mood. Bilbo took to stealing out of Erebor to the river to fish, fashioning a rod for himself that didn’t work all too well until Bofur took over. “Fishing’s easy,” Bofur said, showing Bilbo how to bait a hook. “Calming, too.” 

“I thought you were a miner,” Bilbo said.

“I am at that, but there’s nought for fishing to put you in a fine mood to relax after days of being underground.” 

“Don’t dwarves like being underground?” Bilbo asked, smiling. 

“Aye, well, but there’s nothing wrong with some fresh air and sunlight now and then,” Bofur said. After they cast their lines, he said, “I think the dragon’s probably dead.” 

“Balin thinks so too.” The birds and beasts had started to return to Erebor, and the ravens reported people beginning to resettle in Dale. That told Bilbo that Laketown had likely been destroyed, and that the dragon must have either died or flown elsewhere. Why else would they flee closer to Erebor? 

“That’s it, then?” Bofur asked, watching the river. “We’re done? Journey’s over, happy ending, we’re all rich?”

“You don’t sound any surer of that than I am.” 

“Was hoping you were,” Bofur said with a rueful smile. “It’s been interesting and all, but I’m right tired.” 

“I know what you mean.” Bofur wasn’t referring to being weary of the long, strange journey they’d been through, but of the oppressive pall that hung over Erebor—worsening with each waking day, along with Thorin’s mood. 

“Makes you wonder though, doesn’t it? How all that gold got there. Heaps and heaps of it. Enough for everyone in Erebor to be rich. Yet I doubt that was the case. For one single family to get that rich, means few of the others would’ve been. We’ve still got commonfolk and noblefolk. Kings and bloodlines,” Bofur said. 

“Every society has an uneven distribution of wealth,” Bilbo said. He hesitated. “Maybe not the Elves, though I don’t know.” 

“So just us Younger Races, being unable to figure out things to be fair, even though we live shorter lives and don’t have anything else to look forward to.” 

“There’s a thought,” Bilbo said. He sat up as something pulled at his bait, but he reeled in his rod too quickly—the fish was gone. 

“Got to wait for a real bite, not a nibble,” Bofur said, if comfortingly. “Don’t worry. You’d get used to it.” 

“I miss being able to just walk out of my door and down to the market to buy some already-caught fish,” Bilbo complained as he cast his rod again.

“Oh aye? I never did much of that meself. We caught our fish. Tried not to buy what we didn’t need. Wasn’t much to go round on a miner’s salary. What did you do, back in the Shire? I never asked.” 

“I wrote books.” 

“Successful writer, were you?”

“Not particularly,” Bilbo said, chuckling. “I just lived off my mother’s money. She’d made quite the name for herself as an adventurer, and came from an affluent family. Who married into another affluent family. When I think about that, I suppose I have all of you to thank for saving me from a life where I’d have done nothing but be eminently useless.” 

“You could make up for it when you get back. Write a book about all our adventures. It’d be nice to have my name in a book,” Bofur said with a wistful smile, “like the heroes and kings of old and all that. I used to think only important people would get to be in a book.” 

“What about it? After all, you _are_ important,” Bilbo said. 

Bofur laughed, and Bilbo was about to join in when a cold voice behind them said, “I decreed that no one was meant to leave Erebor.” 

Bilbo flinched, even as Bofur yelped and jumped to his feet. Bilbo forced himself not to get up or turn, watching the river. “We’re fishing for everyone’s dinner, Thorin.” 

“The rations will last.” 

“For how long?” 

After a frigid silence, Thorin said, “Bofur may continue to fish, but must return before it gets dark. You, hobbit. Come with me.” 

Tempted to argue, Bilbo set down his rod instead at Bofur’s pleading expression, He didn’t bother hiding the scowl on his face as he walked up to Thorin’s side. To his surprise, instead of making their way back to Erebor, Thorin angled away from the river along the flank of the mountain. The Lonely Mountain felt vast when walking around it like this, in a way that the city in its heart didn’t. Erebor _was_ huge, Bilbo knew that objectively, but since he hadn’t ventured far from the Great Hall, it didn’t often register. On foot at the bottom of the mountain, it seemed to stretch forever to his left and before him, a natural fortress that the dwarves had claimed in their name. Yet they were fading from the land like the Elves. Bilbo shivered. 

“Almost there,” Thorin said, perhaps mistaking Bilbo’s shiver for the chill. 

“Where are we going?”

“Old hunting lodge. Should be around here.” Thorin peered at the flank of the mountain and let out a satisfied grunt as he walked forward and seemed to disappear. With a gasp, Bilbo hurried over, only to realise that Thorin had jumped into a narrow crevasse. It opened into a natural cave, one hung with dusty racks. Old bows long warped by the damp and time, and blades that had fared better. Dusty, moth-eaten furs, piled against the wall. Chests and boxes that remained untouched. Thorin walked over to a small bow, running his fingertips over its scuffed flank. 

“I wouldn’t know how to use one of those,” Bilbo admitted, in case Thorin offered it to him. 

“It takes practice. This was mine. A long time ago, when I was closer to your size.” Thorin’s mouth twitched into a faint, wan smile. Relieved that he wasn’t in for a scolding, Bilbo drew curiously closer. A small blade hung in the racks as well, along with a wooden twin. “Had my nephews grown up in Erebor, I would have taught them to hunt from here,” Thorin said. 

“It isn’t too late. Though, they probably don’t need to learn how to shoot anymore.” 

“Nor do they need to learn how to hunt.” Thorin drew away from the bow. “I should have left one of them in Ered Luin. My sister begged me to.” 

“Would that have worked?” The princes seemed inseparable.

“No. The bond they share… I envy it sometimes. I was never that close to either of my siblings.” 

“They’re still young.” 

“I hope they won’t lose what they have as they age. Even if I think they will. That is the nature of time, isn’t it? To measure its passing in terms of loss.” 

“That’s a gloomy way to look at things,” Bilbo said. 

“In the shadow of Erebor? Surrounded by the ghosts of most of the people I used to know? It feels fitting.”

“I think they’d prefer you to be glad,” Bilbo said. Thorin wasn’t in one of his ugly, gold-sick moods, but this wasn’t much better. “You’ve avenged them, in a way. Returned to the mountain.”

“Is that what they would have wanted?” Thorin asked, His gaze stayed fixed on the small bow.

“I think you’ve done what they wanted, long ago. By leading your people to Ered Luin. Making sure they all survived the trek.” 

“Only for my father to push us into a war in Khazad-dûm. A war that killed my brother and many of our remaining soldiers, that exhausted any goodwill we had left with the other dwarven lords. The reason I could only muster these few to come to the Lonely Mountain.” Thorin exhaled. “So much of my family history feels ill-fated.” 

“If you’d wanted to live peaceful, quiet lives, you could’ve all stayed in Ered Luin. Rather than wage wars against orcs and dragons.” 

Thorin glared at Bilbo for a moment, only to soften and laugh. “Wise counsel from a gentle folk.” 

“I’ve killed giant spiders and faced orcs, trolls, and dragons in your name, O King,” Bilbo said, folding his arms and twitching his nose. “Should you still be going on about ‘gentle folk’?” 

“It wasn’t an insult.” Thorin drew closer, then closer yet as Bilbo didn’t pull away. He rubbed his knuckles gently against Bilbo’s face, again studying him with that unsettling intensity. “The world would be in a better place if everyone within it was gentler.”

“…Not a sentiment I expected out of a dwarf,” Bilbo said, a little startled.

“No? Perhaps you don’t know much of us yet either.” Thorin curled an arm around Bilbo’s back, then pulled him close when Bilbo didn’t jerk away. “Something like this would usually be more formal,” Thorin murmured as he bent. “Yet I feel as though time itself is compressing around us. Building to something.” 

Bilbo let out a tiny breath. He felt the same as well, an acceleration of some sort. The world was driving them all toward a gathering storm. The wealth he had seen in Erebor could only lead to war. Bilbo was tempted to tell Thorin to get rid of it. To melt it all and be damned. Pour it into the deepest of their mines to coat the bones of the world. He made a shaky sound and kissed Thorin instead, the beard brushing against his chin, Thorin’s mouth surprisingly soft against his. 

If Bilbo could kiss away the gold-sickness and hunger, he would—but he knew this would only be a short respite. One that he might regret. Still, he allowed Thorin to walk them back toward the furs, to bend him over the dusty pile, to kiss him as demandingly as he wished. Thorin mouthed kisses down Bilbo’s throat, cursing under his breath as he worked out the buttons on Bilbo’s shirt and vest. Bilbo bit down laughter as he pushed his fingers into tangled braids. 

“You think this is funny?” Thorin asked, with mock annoyance. 

“Your beard is incredibly ticklish, O King Under the Mountain,” Bilbo said, and yelped as Thorin bit him. “Ow, hey! Be gentler. Gentler. Especially on my buttons.” 

“A curse on your buttons,” Thorin said, though he obliged, brushing ever more ticklish kisses down to Bilbo’s belly until he got to Bilbo’s belts and breeches. He slowed, looking questioningly up at Bilbo, but as Bilbo nodded, he was quick to undo buckles and ties, kneeling between Bilbo’s legs. Bilbo arched with a low gasp as Thorin sucked him in, his mouth hot and wet around Bilbo’s stiffening shaft, his tongue curling up beneath it. Thorin shot Bilbo a look of amusement at the surprised moan that Bilbo made, his hands working on his belts and breeches. 

When a tentative buck only made Thorin hum in anticipation, Bilbo gently set his hands in Thorin’s hair and moved, careful not to go too quickly. This felt just as surreal as the gigantic hoard had been, somehow. A king kneeling before him, giving him pleasure. No one would ever believe this. Not the way Thorin closed his eyes in pleasure as Bilbo thrust down his throat; not the way Thorin’s hand worked between his thighs, chasing his own relief as he sucked. 

For one infinitely perfect moment, Bilbo nearly told Thorin everything. About the Arkenstone just a hand’s breadth away from Thorin’s shoulders, about what Bilbo was maybe planning to do next. About how the pride of kings would be Thorin’s downfall, the way it had been the downfall of many kings before and after Thorin. About how Bilbo would someday call it dragon sickness, or gold sickness—anything but name it what it was: a lust for the power that wealth brought, a lust that had broken better people than Thorin and worse. 

Bilbo moaned instead, turning his face away. He cried out as Thorin purred, tried to pull back, but Thorin drank him down, throat working greedily. Panting, Bilbo sank back onto the furs as Thorin pulled back and licked his mouth clean, his spare hand wet between his thighs. 

“Fit for a king,” Thorin said, his gaze raking up Bilbo’s spent body. 

“Oh, get up here,” Bilbo said, hauling Thorin up onto the furs.

**Author's Note:**

> twitter: @manic_intent  
> donation policy, writing process, my original works/book: manicintent.carrd.co  
> \--  
> About Thorin’s age: he is the oldest of the dwarves in the book, so I always found it kinda odd that he looked so much younger than Balin. Speculation in the forums etc seems that maybe they made Thorin younger than Balin instead, but tbh I think they just wanted to cast someone hot. Either way, I’ve handwaved it to follow the book’s ages.


End file.
